[In the article below, the links to the documents are provided by BishopAccountability.org,
and were not included in the published or posted versions of this article.
The Globe printed an excerpt of a Medeiros letter, as reproduced here
at the end of this article. We also
offer links to related documents.
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It was 1979, and in the eyes of Cardinal Humberto Medeiros the increasing
number of gay priests was nothing short of ''ominous,'' and the rising
population of homosexual seminarians represented a grave threat to the
future of the Catholic Church.

Medeiros's letter was written more than 20 years before similar sentiments
were expressed by Pope John Paul II's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls,
who said publicly last month that homosexuals ''just cannot be ordained''
if the pedophilia scandals plaguing the church are to be stopped.

The issue of whether homosexuality is at the root of the clergy sex abuse
crisis now roiling the church has become a lightning rod in the debate
over the matter, particularly since Navarro-Valls made his controversial
remarks.

Medeiros's letter was among roughly 800 previously confidential documents
made public yesterday in connection with a civil lawsuit filed against
Cardinal Bernard F. Law by Greg Ford, 24, of Newton, who alleges he was
repeatedly raped by Shanley during the 1980s.

In the letter, Medeiros described Shanley as a ''troubled priest,'' even
though later the same year Medeiros assigned him to parish ministry at
St. John the Evangelist in Newton, where Ford alleges his abuse took place.

In his remarks to Seper, Medeiros wrote of a ''widespread homosexual
culture'' in the United States, and said that ''since our seminaries reflect
the local American culture, the problem of homosexuality has surfaced
there in a manner which is widespread and quite deep.''

As a result, he said, a more stringent admission policy had been put
in place to prevent gays from being admitted to seminaries.

He boasted that the new measures had yielded tangible results.

''We have a seminary which has now—within a five-year period—become
almost fully transformed into a community of healthy, well-balanced young
men,'' Medeiros wrote. ''Our numbers are much smaller but now we will
attract more young men who will be the right kind of candidates.''

Furthermore, he said, efforts to ''strengthen the core of trained spiritual
directors'' had proven to be ''especially helpful in weeding out overt
or latent homosexuals.''

He confessed the incident to his spiritual director, he wrote, ''but
there were no attempts on his part to deal with it.''

The risk in this, the man wrote is that other seminarians grappling with
their sexuality would progress to the priesthood ''ill-equipped to handle
such issues.''

Copies of letters written by Cardinal Medeiros and Cardinal Law to Father
Shanley, and between officials of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese
of San Bernardino, can be viewed at www.boston.com/globe.